Monday, September 29, 2014

If you are a businessperson, you might know well how important Microsoft Outlook is for your business communication needs. Outlook is by far the most heavily used email clients in the software universe. The major reason for such popularity can be attributed to its simple interface and design, as well as the impressive features it offers.

Apart from the usual features such as sending and receiving email, task allocation, event setting, and job scheduling, there are many more features that make this software the best for all communication, organization, and information management purposes.

The email client application is highly flexible when it comes to the customizability. In fact, it is possible to set the software the way you prefer. There are many customizable features in Outlook, which make all your works simpler. However, even the best software is not fully immune to errors, and Microsoft Outlook is no exception as well.

There can be errors, data corruption, or issues happening in the software program once in a while. Outlook not working is one of the most common errors with Outlook. It can happen that when you click on an email message for reading or replying to it, all of a sudden, your reliable Outlook email client application stops responding. Though it is annoying, the issue can be easily surpassed with simple troubleshooting steps.

How to fix Outlook not working problem

There are two possible solutions to deal with the problem. One includes repairing the email client program, where the other way around the issue requires a re-installation. Nevertheless, you can also try some other tools to deal with the situation. For instance, you can use the System Restore function in Windows OS to go back to some restore point, and undo the changes that caused the Outlook issue.

Microsoft Office 2007, one of the recent Office versions, has some inbuilt tools and gears, using which you can repair the program easily. We are talking about the Outlook repair tool here. This utility is the best, when it comes to addressing Outlook not responding issues.

For using this tool, you need to go to the Office button in Microsoft Outlook program, go to Options, and then open Resources. After that, you can run Microsoft Office Diagnostics tool for analyzing the issue. Simply click on the Diagnose button to start the scan and fix the issues in the application.

Microsoft Windows 8 launch was the most anticipated event for the software giant a couple of years back. However, it failed to prove any good as to what Microsoft expected.

We all know what happened. The operating system bombed big time, even compared to Windows Vista. Experts say that it is because of the plenty of Windows 8 problems, the operating system did not do well in the market. In fact, Microsoft admits that the latest OS in the Windows line did have some flaws. Let us list out some of the glaring Windows 8 problems here.

Metro-ized Start Screen and complicated interface
Microsoft tried to introduce something new in the user interface, but it was so new that it changed the familiar Windows design entirely. Therefore, most people found the operating system interface difficult to absorb. One of the most visible changes in the platform is the new ‘Metro style’ Start Screen replacing the Start Menu. Microsoft brought in a very new way of starting and managing the applications installed in Windows 8.

Microsoft genuinely feels that mobile devices and mobile applications are the future. Probably because of this, the software giant unified the design. As a result, Windows 8 looks much like its mobile counterpart Windows Phone. However, the problem here is that the new interface makes things complicated for users who have no idea why things are the way they are.

Inability entirely close applications
It is impossible to close any program in Windows 8 after use. When you open an application, it will not close until the operating system finds it necessary to suspend it. That too is done as a process to save CPU cycles. So, any such open apps continuously uses your system resources.

The company says that the whole idea of Metro and advanced applications for the new platform is that the kernel session is not closed entirely. This makes the system perform faster. Now, this looks reasonable, but when the suspended applications start consuming precious CPU resources, then it is a problem that needs to be rectified.

Even shutting down Windows 8 is an issue because of the hybrid shutdown options. For proper shut down or restart of Windows 8, you need to first Log off, and then click on the Power button and then select either Restart or Shutdown.

These were some of the glaring Windows 8 issues, which contributed in its collapse in the market. However, these are not the only ones that led Microsoft think of a new strategy.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Microsoft’s software and products users are often troubled with bugs and technical issues. This usually happens when somehow, their tech team fails to fix Microsoft errors in these products during the testing phase. This, obviously, leads to embarrassing situations where a brand new software product is marred by reports about these technical problems.

Reports about the WiFi errors in Surface Pro 3

This has happened many times in the past, when the tech support team releases solutions to fix Microsoft errors, as and when reported of the same. Microsoft was able to get away with such technical problems a few years ago with prompt support, as there was not much a competition to their flagship products. However, things are different today.

Take for example, the recently reported WiFi errors in Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablets. Even as thousands of Surface and Surface 2 tablets are lying unsold in the warehouses all over globe, Microsoft keeps releasing newer editions in an attempt to make some impact in the tablet computer market, which is dominated by Google and Apple. But, the reports about these WiFi errors affected the sales inversely.

As always, Microsoft tech support team quickly released an online fix for these WiFi errors in Surface Pro 3. So, if you are one of those Surface Pro 3 users, who could not connect to the local WiFi network because of a bug in the program, then go to the Microsoft tech support website, and install this patch. If you have enabled the Automatic Update option in your Surface 3 tablet though, then this fix would have been installed automatically by now.

It is good to see that Microsoft is able to release solutions to such problems within such a short time. Nonetheless, it would have been much better, if such errors did not show up in the first place. Most average users are not good at troubleshooting the technical errors or installing the Microsoft Fix It solutions on their own. In other words, whenever their tablet or smartphone is showing an error message or is not working properly, they will have to take it to a professional tech service center nearby to fix it.

So, releasing these solutions online might already be too late to these not-so-tech-savvy users. As already mentioned, such technical errors and problems will only benefit their competitors Google and Apple, who keep releasing new OS versions without any such glitches.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Yahoo toolbar can sometimes be annoying. It changes your home page, sets another search engine as your default provider, and hijacks huge space on the browser screen. If you install this in your computer, it makes these changes in all the browsers it enters. So, following are the steps to remove Yahoo toolbar from Google Chrome.

Steps to follow

Hit the menu icon in the browser (this is at the top right of the window, shown as a wrench icon, or a stack), and choose Tools.

Once there, select Extensions. From here, find the Yahoo! Toolbar for Chrome entry, and hit the trash icon next to it. This will remove the toolbar from the browser.

There is still work to do after the removal of the toolbar from the Extensions page, which primarily involve reverting the changes it has made and deleting its leftovers from the system.

Changing the home page

Click on the menu button in Chrome and select Settings. Go to In Startup and hit the Set pages option. Hover the cursor on top of Yahoo.com, and then hit the x symbol against it. Add your preferred website here, or leave that blank as default.

Changing the default search engine

Yahoo toolbar changes your default search engine to Yahoo search, which remains even after you have removed the toolbar. You have to manually revert the change. For this too, you start at the menu icon. When the options pop down, hit Settings, and go to the Search section. Select Manage Search Engines..., hit the button to remove Yahoo!, and then set another domain as the preferred search provider.

Alternate method

There is another way to revert the changes brought about by the installation of Yahoo toolbar. Just reset your Chrome browser. For this, go to the menu and pick Tools. From there, go to Extensions, select Settings from the left pane, and then choose the Show advanced settings… link. Go to the bottom of the page and click the Reset browser settings button. Hit the Reset button on the windows that opens up.

These are some of the methods to remove Yahoo toolbar from your PC. When done, run a full scan on your computer, and remove any leftovers associated with Yahoo from the system. Call our support number for further assistance, and our technical expert will help you out over a live chat session.